
Stationary and Office Supplies – Montego Bay offices.
Stationery and Office Supplies (SOS) purchase of equipment used to manufacture various types of writing books as well as the brand name SEEK.
“This purchase will allow SOS to enter the manufacturing industry in Jamaica starting with books and a plan to continue to manufacture other stationery products in the future”, SOS states.
Machinery purchased includes the following: Ruling machines, Guillotines, Gluing Machines, Stapling Machines and Book Presses.
The total value of the purchase is $60 million and is being financed through a bond with Jamaica National amounting to $80 million at an interest rate of 8 percent, and a duration for repayment of 7 years. The company expects that the total investment including machinery, raw materials and renovations will exceed $80 million. The Company said with this expansion, SOS initially be employing an additional 25 persons with production expected to start during the first week of May 2018. Prior to the acquisition a compliment of 40 persons were employed with a mixture of full time and part timers. Revenues expected in the first twelve months is estimated at $130 million but could rise beyond this, as the business maintains most of the customers for books and SOS leverage their existing customers base and others for more business. According to
Allan McDaniel, Deputy Managing Director & Director of Warehousing and Logistics, the previous owner operated for about six months per year, but SOS will be able to operate full time and at less cost. The operation will be housed in the adjoining building they acquired last year and effectively fills out the space with their expanded inventories occupying about half. Profit margin is attractive and will almost ensure that the company will profit from it, this year, with growth estimated by them to likely be in the 30 percent region coming from both local and export sales. The new operation could deliver around $40 million to profit in 2018 and around $70 million in 2019, IC Insider.com estimates. Speaking about SOS operations, McDaniel would only say they are happy with the first quarter, that was helped by an increased inventory, now around $170 million compared to $117 million in March last year, just ahead of the public share offer. McDaniel said that while some of the fellow businesspersons are talking about a weak first quarter, SOS expects to report continued growth.
The company’s stock ended at a record close of $6 on the Junior Market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange on Tuesday gaining 200 percent since it was listed in August last year.
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The McDaniel family owned
The Company estimates that the expenses in the invitation will not exceed $12,000,000 inclusive of General Consumption Tax and an expanded marketing and publicity spend, expected to not only drive interest in the IPO but create greater awareness about the company. and its products.
and a 3,000 square feet location in Montego Bay that houses 1,200 square feet of office and showroom space and a 1,800 square foot warehousing facility supported by a staff complement of sixteen. The Head Office currently employs eighty-three team members. Eleven delivery vehicles are operated by the company including trucks, which support delivery to customers.
During the last six years, the Company added commercial shredding to its suite of services offered to the general public. The service has become popular among entities which have large volumes of waste paper and other sensitive material that stores data, but are concerned about improper disposal methods. The Company’s states that its “shredding facility meets international best practice standards and has the capacity to shred up to 5,000 pounds of paper per day as well as the destruction of tapes, hard drives and compact discs. The Company’s shredding facility offers the customer the ability to view an on-line real-time video stream of the shredding process being undertaken on-site on their behalf, or if preferred the customer may also be present when the shredding process is being undertaken”.